Extra! Extra! Ink-stained wretches tied to their desks!

Another lumbering giant recently proved itself ill-adapted for evolution. The San Francisco Chronicle, Northern California's largest daily rag, decided to cut off its employees' remote access. From now on, reporters will have to be at their desks to check their email, a move that one reporter told me was a "giant step backwards."

April 28, 199712:45 PM PDT

Everyone these days is dino-crazy.
T-Rex has become a cash cow. Vermel and I just got back from the
Natural History Museum, where the prehistoric beasts were resurrected
and propped up in battle scenes. The tinny roar of dueling dinos played
from hidden speakers, while kids dragged their parents to the gift shop
for T-shirts and baseball caps. No wonder the terrible lizards didn't
survive--they failed to grasp the finer points of merchandising their
own likenesses. Of course, grasping anything is difficult without
opposable thumbs.

Another lumbering giant recently proved itself ill-adapted for
evolution. The San Francisco
Chronicle, Northern California's largest daily rag, decided to
cut off its employees' remote access. From now on, reporters will have
to be at their desks to check their email, a move that one reporter
told me was a "giant step backwards."

"What's next?" she said rhetorically. "No more calling in to check
voice mail?"

The edict came about when the Chron decided to make the Gate,
the Web site/ISP it shares with S.F.'s afternoon paper, the Examiner,
strictly content-only. No more ISP meant no more dial-ins, which lots
of Chron workers were using to surf the Web at night. Hmm.
Whatever the nocturnal proclivities of some employees, cutting off all
remote access is like throwing the
ichthyosaurus out with the Jurassic sea water. Taking the newest
tools of the trade away from reporters out in the foggy field all day
isn't a great way to thrive, let alone survive.

Granted, it's been tough for print media dinosaurs to wrap their brain
stems around digital evolution. But some are trying harder than others.
At the Interactive Newspapers conference in San Francisco last year,
one silver-haired Texas publisher stood up and confessed, "I'm not sure
what it is, but we gotta get on the email."

Another ink-stained wretch definitely has email. Whether she has a clue
is another story. As I, Skinny DuBaud,
predicted, the San Jose Mercury News now has its own tech
gossip columnist, Chris Nolan. I reported in December that Merc staff
opinion was divided about the hire. There's likely to be even more
division after last week's inauspicious debut, in which Nolan reported
that oysters were served at a Silicon Valley charity ball, then
followed up in the next column by admitting that oysters were in fact
not served at said event. Even more strange, the Merc
promoted the column--and Nolan's blunder--on the front page.

Government officials frequently dismiss their critics as too
conspiracy-minded, but what's a paranoiac to do when the feds'
clearinghouse for information on the Web has cryptic messages in its
URL? The FedWorld site has a page
where you can give your credit card number and purchase government
publications. The URL http://chaos.fedworld.gov/ordernow. Color me
zany, but the words credit card and chaos don't mix well together on
the Internet. So much for purchasing those guides to farming explosives.

On the other hand, maybe I should buy those kids at Microsoft the
latest CIA World Factbook. According to one reader, the latest
Bookshelf '97 atlas has an info button for the state of Georgia--the
Peach State, that is, as in
R.E.M., goobers, and
Jimmy Carter (not necessarily in that order)--but it links to info on
the nation-state of
Georgia. As in north of Turkey, fights with
Azerbaijan, and 120-year-old women who smoke a pack of butts a day
(I saw them on a National Geographic special). Those kids in
Redmond may know software, but former Soviet republics is another
matter!
It's a topsy-turvy world, so email me your rumors ASAP. Don't worry--I can read them from anywhere.